Category: Help

It’s Tip Tuesday y’all! We’ll walk you through setup and common questions so you’re ready to start your Weeva book today! It doesn’t matter if you’re looking to create an anniversary book, a birthday book, or even a retirement book, the basic system is the same.

Starting A Project

The first step in creating a Weeva book is to sign up. You can either click the “Sign Up” button on our homepage or you can click this beautiful link: Start Your Weeva Book

You should see a screen like this:

As you can see it’s a super easy signup process. Give your project a title – you can change it later or when you check out, then add your name, email, and set a good password.

Next, you’ll see a screen that asks for some details – this helps us give you the best resources to make your book a success:

Project Description

Next, it will ask you for a project description. You don’t have to write a lot but we suggest you include the following:

Who this is for and the occasion

The date to contribute by (4 weeks before you need the book)

If this is a secret or not

Here’s an example of a description:

Deadline

We ask you for a deadline – this is for us to know when you need the book by. It allows us to give you a timeline with deadlines to help you receive your book in time. Some books take longer than others. We know that memorials are difficult for everyone, so just put a tentative date in here and we can always adjust later.

Project

Once your finish your initial setup, you should see a screen like this:

It includes the title, the description, the order button, the project settings (where you can add a subtitle), the invite button, and a private message button. After you’re happy with it, you can start setting up your book.

Setting Up Your Project

This is where the fun begins. You have a variety of options to start here. You can either start inviting people and let everyone add their own threads and passages, or you can pre-structure at least a little bit. It’s easier for us (and you) if you start the threads in the order you’d like them in the book and it’s incredibly helpful for friends and family if they know what you are looking for. And don’t worry, they can always add their own anyway.
Three things you need to know.

Your project is private. That means only you and the people you invite and gave the link to can join and read.

If a passage or thread is published – everyone in the book can read it or those that have the link to join.

Everyone can add new threads and passages if they are a part of the project. But don’t worry – we monitor and so can you. If you don’t want something in the book, we can leave it out.

If you’re ready for your first thread (chapter) scroll down:

Threads

Threads are also considered chapters. Each thread holds an “unlimited” amount of passages. That means you don’t have to worry about too many people adding their memories in a thread. So just relax and let the stories post. It’s easiest to set up threads ahead of time to give an example of the content you want people to add. Ideas for threads:

Funniest Memories

Favorite Pictures

When I met …

I’d describe X in 3 words

I love X because..

X as a parent

X as a friend

These are just samples. When you’re ready, click “Start A New Thread”

Here is an example of a pre-populated book:

This will help guide people and spark memories and ideas about what to post. You’ll also be able to tell which threads have content and by whom. See the picture above – nobody yet under all of them except “The Story Of Us” because I actually wrote in that thread and added a picture.

Passages and Pictures

Now that you have set up threads, it’s time to add some content. To add content click an existing thread and start typing in the box. It’s saved as a draft until you hit publish. Remember, once it is published, everyone in your project can read it.

In this case, I added some thought starters. You can do that too and we will remove it during editing. Or you can just write your story.
If you’d like to add a picture to your story, click the purple bar “Add A Picture” and choose one from your computer. We like larger files because it’s better to print them but we usually suggest staying under 10MB

This is what it’ll look like together:

Now you’ll hit “publish” and you’ve posted your first story and picture. Each passage can hold 1 picture but you are welcome to add as many passages with just pictures as you like.

TIP: If you’re stuck or have questions, click the little bubble in the bottom right corner of your screen – it’s usually blue and is a direct line to our Customer Success team and most of the time Deanna herself.

Invites

Now that you’ve set up your project you are ready to invite friends and family. Click the “Invite Somone” button in the top right corner.

You can add email addresses here (not the handy “How to write great invites“) or you can click direct link and use that. If you’d like a “pretty” and short link, reach out to Deanna, she will help. Note that email invites only work for the person invited and stop working once used. You’ll get an error message if you try to use it again, even to log in. Also noteworthy is that the direct link is a universal link. ANYONE with that link can read your stories and sign up, so be mindful about sharing that one if it’s a secret, or only for select people.

That’s it, you’re done! How easy was that? You’re ready to collect and share beautiful memories, and discover, read, and view some that you didn’t know existed!

It’s tip Thursday! Today we cover “How To Scan Pictures.” We want to make sure that you have all the tools and tips to make your book, your project, or whatever you are currently working on! One of the most common questions we get at Weeva is “How do I scan a picture quickly?” & “How do I scan an old picture so it’s clear?” Our design team whipped up a fantastic post to help you with scanning your pictures!

How To Scan Pictures For Your Weeva Book

So you’ve got all these pictures, but you threw out that clunky old scanner and now you don’t know what to do? Believe it or not, you have a pretty good scanner in your pocket – your phone. The cameras on phones these days are really quite good, good enough that they can be used effectively to scan in pictures. All you need is a table in a well-lit space and the help of a handy app.

There are many apps that can help you scan pictures. Why use an app? Well, the app can do a lot of handy things like compensate for the distortion of your phone’s camera lens and pictures taken at a slight angle, reduce glare and automatically crop your picture perfectly from the surface you’ve set it on.

What’s a good photo scanning app?

Probably the best photo scanning app available is PhotoScan – a free app made by Google that’s available on both iOS and Android. It’s an app that JUST does picture scanning, and has a ton of smart technology to make sure your scanned photos come out looking great. The app has you move your phone in a pattern above the picture you want to scan, capturing it from multiple angles, then creating one high-resolution copy that removes any glare coming from lights in the room. It’s pretty magical.

I should mention Shoebox, from Ancestry.com, which was one of the early apps to make a big splash about photo scanning with your phone. It was tightly integrated with Ancestry, which was nice for people who used that service. Unfortunately, the app hasn’t been updated in a couple years (never a good sign) so it does not the most modern experience or technology available.

I personally use an app called Scanner Pro – it does a lot of handy scanning tasks for documents as well as pictures – but it’s only for iOS, costs $4, and doesn’t have the same kind of anti-glare technology that PhotoScan does. It is, however, a fantastic app to have on hand for general purpose scanning, and can even send faxes of scanned documents!

Whatever app you use, here are some tips to get the best results:

Use a clean, solid surface, free of clutter.

A dark surface will generally work better, especially if you’re scanning pictures with white borders (like many old pictures and polaroids). But some pictures – like photos shot at night that are very dark, may do better on a light or white surface. The point is to maximize the contrast between the edges of your picture and the surface they’re resting on.

If possible, do your phone-scanning in a place where the lighting is bright but diffuse. The best example of diffuse light is a cloudy day when there are no shadows. Avoid spotlights or anything that will cause strong glare or shadows.

That’s it! I think you’ll find it surprisingly easy to digitize your old photos armed with a modern smartphone and the right App.

Do you have any other tips or questions? We’d love to hear them! Don’t forget to share this post or pin it 🙂